Design research with a heart
Centering care in public sector discovery
Government research often starts with good intentions: understand the problem, design a better solution, serve the public more effectively.
But too often, the approach feels extractive. Communities are asked to share their stories again and again, only to see little change. Participants are viewed as sources of data, not as partners in transformation. And researchers? They’re rarely equipped for the emotional weight of what they hear.
If we want to design services that truly meet public needs, we must start by redesigning how we listen.
We need design research with a heart—a practice grounded in care, curiosity, and long-term responsibility. Because the stories people share with us are more than “insight.” They are offerings of trust. And how we respond matters.
Two figures stand among layered speech bubbles and heart icons, symbolizing empathy, care, and connection at the heart of human-centered design research.
Research with purpose repairs the relationships between people and the institutions meant to serve them.
Human-centered research means human-centered relationships
At Public Servants, we practice and teach human-centered research that does more than gather feedback. We help teams build trauma-informed and -responsive discovery processes that center dignity, consent, and cultural humility from start to finish.
That means:
Preparing for conversations with context, not assumptions
Compensating participants fairly and transparently
Pausing when people express harm, fatigue, or concern
Following up with results and opportunities to stay engaged
This is research with purpose—the kind that doesn’t just inform better services, but starts to repair the relationships between people and the institutions meant to serve them.
Engaging community requires more than outreach
We’ve worked with civic teams who care deeply about the communities they serve, but don’t always know how to show it through research. They want to engage, but aren’t sure how to do it meaningfully, especially in places where trust is already low.
Here’s what we tell them:
You don’t need to be perfect.
You need to be present, transparent, and accountable.
You don’t need to be perfect. You need to be present, transparent, and accountable. Tell people what you're doing and why. Share what you’ll do with what they tell you. Then follow through.
If people are too tired to participate, don’t push harder—ask why the system has made them tired. And if they don’t want to talk to you, consider whether you’re the right person to ask. Sometimes the most respectful thing you can do is share the mic, or step aside.
Engaging community well is not a matter of logistics. It’s a matter of values.
Research is service, too
In the rush to meet deadlines and deliver reports, we can forget that research itself is a public-facing act. It shapes perceptions. It creates relationships. It leaves traces.
Let’s make those traces healing—not extractive.
Because the more care we bring to our research, the more durable our designs become. Not just in function, but in how people feel about using them.
That’s what makes public work worth doing.
Want to build your team’s research capacity?
We offer workshops and training for civic teams ready to deepen their discovery practices—centered in care, equity, and long-term systems change.
